


The inherent violence of a man's hand

by Baryshnikov



Series: Spoiled Fruit [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Breathplay, Choking, Dom/sub Undertones, Intimacy, M/M, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Sensuality, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: Harry just has a thing for Tom's hand around his throat.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: Spoiled Fruit [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616770
Comments: 6
Kudos: 144





	The inherent violence of a man's hand

**Author's Note:**

> This is not great—apologies.

Harry had never been a fan of extravagant dinners, or, even worse, the official Ministry galas to which he was repeatedly invited and, without exception, declined to attend. Until now that was. This time, he had begrudgingly accepted his invitation to the Ministry Winter Gala because Tom had refused the indignity of attending alone, and Harry was too bolshie to go merely as a plus-one. The compromise was that they were going separately together, and they were leaving straight after the coffee course.

With such stringent conditions in place, the evening could have been salvaged, had it not been for the clothing requirements. Harry did not make it a habit to attend events with a dress code, let alone one with the fanciest dress code he’d borne witness to—the sort of event you weren’t allowed entry to if you were wearing the wrong dinner jacket. Even with the dress code, the evening could have been saved by decent company, but that was too much to hope for. Instead, the other guests they would be seated with were Tom’s friends, and their wives and their husbands, and any other sycophant that had wriggled their way onto one of the most desirable tables of the evening.

Perhaps, Harry could have made the best of it. Perhaps he could have been the mature and responsible person he was when he was at work. But he couldn't because Tom’s set were part of the ‘social elite;’ the sort that went to the opening night at the opera in pearls and fur; the sort that went to charity galas just to be on the front cover of glossy fashion magazines; the sort that were always media-ready; in short, the kind of people that Harry personally found insufferable and only met on the rare occasion Tom insisted that it would be good for publicity.

But it was because of the standard of Tom’s high-class friends—and his own sense of comparative crudeness—that Harry was in here, battling with a tie when they still had half-an-hour before they had to be there. The tie was winning, and he dropped the two ends with a frustrated sigh, letting them flop against his shirt. Despite his day job investigating the worst humanity had to offer, formalwear would always be his archnemesis.

“Are you, perchance, being defeated by a tie?” came Tom’s voice, and Harry jerked his head up to see him standing in the doorway, all dressed apart from his tie and shoes. Behind him, the light of the hallway tried to push into the room, but only succeeded in casting his shadow across the carpeting, and creeping up the edge of the bed, as smooth and insidious as the real thing.

Tom continued to stand there and watch him, the shadows deepening the hollows of his features and the light accenting the crest of his throat and the bridge of his nose. Like that, he was so enviably still in a way that Harry could never emulate—he was too twitchy, too agitated, too _defensive_ to sit there patiently and assess the situation. But, Tom—oh, he could wait forever, like a spider in its web, biding itself time for someone to come along and entangle themselves in it.

“No—obviously,” Harry said, embarrassment catching in the back of his throat and making the reply sharper than it needed to be.

Tom smiled. “ _Obviously_ ,” he repeated as he leaned into the doorframe and continued to watch like he had nothing better to do.

Harry held his gaze and pushed his feet down into the carpet, he might have been used to Tom watching him, but he would never get over how it felt. The fluttering warmth that began between his ribs and pushed down deep into his stomach and all because Tom was watching him with that choking smile of his.

He leant his weight back, stretching out his spine and leaving the prints of his palms in the duvet—an overly dramatic attempt to be casual that made Tom tilt his chin upward and look down at him. Harry continued to hold his eyes for a while longer, until the temptation to look became too great and he found his own eyes wandering. It was a forgivable fault, though, after all, whilst Harry might not have suited the cut of a dinner jacket, Tom certainly did. He was how every man dreamed they looked in a suit—striking, serrated and obscenely attractive; the sort of man who was remembered. 

And whatever Tom might say, they both knew that he liked to be looked at—he got a rush out of it—and, for once, Harry allowed himself to indulge. He traced his eyes over the rest of him, lingering at how Tom’s suit was fitted across the shoulder and cut close enough to his waist to give you a hint of what was underneath.

Without looking up, Harry said, “maybe you should just be a gentleman and come tie it for me?” It wasn’t strictly necessary to have Tom do it, but Harry wanted him to anyway; he wanted to have Tom come over here and put his hands on him—call it compensation for him agreeing to go to this godawful event.

"Maybe I should," Tom said, though it sounded flat, as though he was rolling the suggestion around his mouth and over his tongue as he considered it. “Then again,” he continued with a tilt of his head and a lazy drag of his eyes up Harry’s body, “maybe I’m not in the mood to be helpful.”

“Maybe you should be.”

“Maybe you should give me an incentive.”

“Fine,” Harry said, leaning further back onto the palm of his hand and trying to look relaxed, even as his heart jittered and his stomach squirmed, “you help me with my tie, and I’ll let you put your hands wherever you want them.”

“Wherever I want?” Tom said as he stepped out from the doorway, the light immediately cutting into his face, hacking him out like a diamond from rock, “well, that’s _quite_ the incentive, isn’t it?”

With that, he came to sit on the bed beside him, the mattress dipping under his weight. Tom sat a little back from Harry, his left leg folded up and his right hanging off the edge. Harry could feel him, the warmth of him, the measure of each breath, even the deeper notes of his cologne—the ones you could only ever smell right against his skin. Harry swallowed, his shoulders stiff and his hands resting heavily on his thighs. There was something profound in being so close to someone else that each act of their body becomes an act of your own; the two of them were colliding now and Harry could hardly tell where he ended, and Tom began.

When he was blurring with someone else so much, it was difficult for Harry not to be so aware of himself—that slight uptake in his breathing and the tightening of his spine. He fought the urge to turn and get a close and proper look at Tom; to hold him and touch him and call him his own. He wanted to do it, but he didn’t, rather, Harry just watched Tom in the mirror attached to the wardrobe; watched the length of his reflection—their reflection—as Tom settled himself closer enough that buttons of his shirt grazed over Harry’s back every time he shifted.

“You know, you’re going to have to stay still,” Tom said, his tone dipping low and the flat of his hand coming up to rest on Harry’s shoulder blade. It was warm and Harry could feel the outline of each finger even through both his jacket and his shirt.

Harry licked his lips and shifted again, at once feeling far too much like a schoolboy about to meet his teenage crush behind the bike shed. “Because...?”

“Because, Harry, the throat is fragile,” Tom said, “and we wouldn’t want to do you any damage, now, would we?”

He shook his head and he was sure that Tom smiled. But he didn’t get to consider that for too long, as Tom’s fingers began to skim over the side of his neck, the tips coming to rest just below the pulse point before they hooked under his collar and set about loosening the stiff cotton.

Tom crossed over the ends of his tie, and Harry swallowed, the material tight on the crest of his throat and the thrilling knowledge that if Tom pulled it taut, he’d choke him in the best possible way. The thought of it was thick on his tongue and almost taste the burn on the back of his throat, and Tom hadn’t even done anything yet.

“You want me to do it?” Tom murmured right against his ear as he pulled gently—teasingly—at each end of the tie, the material brushing over Harry’s skin and making him shiver.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed, each letter sticking to his tongue and his heart staticky under his skin. He wanted Tom to do it because Tom did it better than anyone else ever did.

The tie was low on his neck, the two sides crossing at the hollow of his throat and as Tom tightened his grip, Harry felt the strain begin to bite at his skin. That familiar sensation, at once rough and smooth as the cotton caught in the grooves of his skin and pulled tight enough to yank all the air out of his lungs and make him ball his fists up against his thighs.

“That's good, isn’t it?” Tom said, speaking to Harry’s mirror likeness as he drew the tie taut around Harry’s neck—the edges pressing deep enough into the skin to leave behind marks neither of them would bother to remove. 

In the reflection, Harry could see the ends of the tie wreathed around Tom’s fingers and a faint whiteness to his knuckles from the effort it took to choke a grown man. Harry could also see himself, the flush on his cheek and the sleep heavy on his lids. Though Harry wasn’t asleep, he couldn't be, not when every nerve was pulled tight and trembling.

"Is this what you imagined it would feel like…?" Tom murmured, his mouth dipping in close and his lips touching at the skin behind Harry's ear, and all Harry could think about was that Tom's voice, all smooth and salty in his ear, might be the last thing he heard before he suffocated. “To have me choke you with your expensive tie?”

Harry mouthed at the air, a weak, watery thought floating in the back of his head, that they should really start using this expensive tie for its designated purpose if they ever wanted to make it on time, but Tom ended that thread of thought when he let go of the tie and it swung down around Harry’s neck and the only thought he had was to get some air into his lungs. Though there was scarcely a moment between the tie slumping against Harry’s chest and Tom’s hand reaching up to trace the muscles in his throat. Without thinking, Harry raised his chin to accommodate Tom’s hand and he caught the eye of his reflection; his feet pressed hard into the floor and his head tilted back and his lips parted in a mixture of anticipation and awe at the connection of two bodies—linked by something as brutal as it was tender.

Bare hands touching bare skin—the warmth of Tom’s hand nearly suffocating as it moulded to the shape of his throat; fingers pressing into the natural grooves and his palm flat against the crest. This was what it was to be held—to be loved by another—their hand wrapped around your throat and the heat of their palm burning their handprint into your neck.

It was violence in its softest, most intimate form, and like the roll of the waves swallowing up the beach, Harry could feel himself be consumed by it. He leaned back, curving himself into the concave of Tom’s spine and feeling the beat of his heart throbbing into his bones.

Tom’s hands left his throat and he began to ease the far-too-expensive jacket off Harry's shoulders and started about with folding it up. But before he could even cut the first crease, Harry grabbed it from him and tossed it across the room, where it hit a wall and crumbled into a heap.

“Impatient,” Tom chided, his spare hand sliding lower, tracing the outline of Harry’s waist and pressing down to the point of his hip, where it rested, firm and heavy and waiting. Harry couldn’t help shifting, pushing his hips forward and pressing his shoulders back.

Harry glared at Tom’s reflection. “Like you’re not."

“On the contrary, Harry,” he said, “I know exactly when to take my time.” As he spoke, Tom’s lips brushed against Harry’s cheekbone and his palm pressed across the crest of his throat, smothering him. At the same time, his spare hand drifted down to grip at Harry’s thigh, trailing his fingers along the inseam of his trousers that were too nice to fit right, before easing Harry’s legs apart. 

It was shameless but Harry didn’t stop him. 

Rather, Harry pushed back against him, fitting himself into the spaces made by Tom’s hands and legs even though it was already too hot and too close to do so. Tom continued to watch him in the mirror, his eyes sharp.  
“Does this turn you on?” Tom said so softly that, despite the suffocating space between them, Harry had to tilt his head back further, just to catch the words. Tom continued to press his mouth to the stretch of skin just below his ear with such a smothering slowness—lethargic by another name—that Harry could feel each of his muscles softening like warmed butter.

“Do you find it arousing,” Tom continued, his hand squeezing Harry’s neck just tight enough that Harry was biting at the air to get a taste of oxygen, “that I have so much power over you?”

Of course, it was about power—everything with Tom was—and maybe Harry should have hated him for it. He didn't though, because there was something quite lovely in being controlled when he wanted it; like this, he didn’t have to worry about what he needed because Tom was already giving it to him. In his selfish quest to be in control, Tom had accidentally become rather altruistic. He knew what Harry liked and how he liked it, all Harry had to do was let him get on with it—and wasn’t that nice? Nice to just let himself sink back against Tom and know that he was safe and that he was loved as no one had ever been loved before.

“I could do anything I want to you and you’d just let me, wouldn’t you, Harry?” Tom continued, still low and prickly on the back of his neck, though there was a slight lilt to it now—a sugary glazing on every word that betrayed how much Tom craved the control. That simple desire he had crawling under his skin to shape the contours of the human throat with his bare hands—to hold the essence of life itself between his fingers. It was beautiful in the way that surgery was beautiful—beyond all the horror of cutting someone open was the meticulousness of the incision and the accuracy of each little stitch back up.

Harry would be lying if he said that didn't make him hot inside—his heart trying to spear itself on the ends of his ribs—and his stomach squirming and squeezing. He met Tom’s eyes in the mirror. 

“I know I could,” Tom said as he laced his fingers between Harry’s and slid them down Harry’s thigh—not quite high enough to be indecent, but enough to get Harry’s stomach rolling and his ribs to ache with the effort of holding in his heart. But Harry forced himself not to react; to instead, press his teeth into the tip of his tongue and hope that Tom couldn’t feel how much he wanted him to do just that.

Tom was still holding his eyes when he began to clench at Harry’s throat; his fingers pressing down at the sides and his palm flat at the crest. He squeezed and Harry felt every muscle and every blood vessel start to constrict under the pressure until he could hear the pounding of his pulse heavy in his ears and the burning begin to take hold in the lining of his lungs. 

But it wasn’t just the way that Tom squeezed his throat that Harry adored. It was the way it made a flush bloom high on Tom’s cheeks, and his eyes go glassy; it was the way his breath slowed, and every intake of air was marked and deep; it was the way that control turned Tom on, even if he wouldn't admit it himself.

Tom was unwilling to accept that he could be subdued by something as ordinary as an emotion—something as common as love—but he'd never seen his own face when his hands were wrapped around Harry's throat. He'd never got to witness that ragged, desperate look he got in his eyes when he was allowed to do what he liked. And Harry never got enough of Tom doing whatever he pleased. Just as he never got tired of the weight of Tom’s hand and the warmth of his mouth as he tried to ground himself—as he tried to remember that he was still human; bones rolled in flesh and not some creature made out of the edges of stars. Tom's shoulder pushed against Harry’s and his hand tracing the length of Harry’s arm—the tips of his fingers bristling over his skin and making him shiver.

“I know you want it,” Tom murmured, his mouth hot and his teeth scraping at the lobe of his ear. “You want it bad, don’t you?” As he spoke, Tom pressed their hands down, grinding the palm against Harry’s knee, as he squeezed at Harry’s throat that bit tighter, the pressure of his fingers making every breath brittle on Harry’s tongue, but still not quite choking him. 

Any other time and any other place Harry would have shaken his head; he would never have allowed himself to be so visible—his wants broadcast shamelessly to anyone who could see them, though the only person who could was Tom, and Tom didn’t ask questions he didn’t already know the answer to. This time, though, Harry nodded, after all, he was dizzy with it. Tom always made him dizzy; dizzy and aching and horribly impatient.

“I didn’t hear that, Harry.” 

The words were viscous and heavy and stuck to the back of his tongue and coated the inside of his mouth, and every time Harry tried to speak them, they flopped out of his mouth and puddled pathetically on the floor. And with the mirror just a few feet away, Harry got to watch each humiliating failure in painful clarity—so could Tom. He was watching him now; his left hand still wrapped around Harry’s neck and his chin resting on Harry’s right shoulder, and he had the same, sleek look that he always got when there was something he wanted within his grasp.

“If you can’t articulate it,” Tom said, still holding his gaze in the mirror, “why don’t you show me _exactly_ how you feel?” There was something so easy in Tom’s tone, so casual, so self-assured that Harry’s pulse pounded harder in his throat and a boldness bloomed in his stomach.

In the moment of pluckiness that followed, Harry drew his hand up along the stretch of his thigh—taking Tom’s with him. He didn’t look in the mirror. Not when he could already picture the asphyxiating colour of Tom’s eyes and the slice of his smile and he could already feel the grip of his knuckles around his throat, grasping just tight enough to make his head spin.

Instead of watching his own shame, Harry squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head back to rest on Tom’s shoulder, his head fitting perfectly into the curve of his neck. Only then—behind the cover of closed lids when he could pretend, he was both unknown and unknowable—did Harry guide their hands to the ache between his legs, pushing them apart and pulling himself open. Behind him, he could feel the rise and fall of Tom’s chest and the quickening pace of his heart as he dragged their hands up the inner length of his thigh to the joint of his hip. And wasn't there such an intimacy to being loved—to being adored—to being held like you were the only thing in the world worth holding; like you were a severed finger being clutched on the way to the hospital, cradled in hot, bloody, hands that just wanted you to be alright.

Harry twisted his neck to face Tom—his lips tingling with the effort and Tom’s nails scratching into his skin. This was intimacy, Tom’s hand wrapped around his throat and Tom’s fingers pushed into his pulse and Tom’s palm pressed between his legs. 

Inside those expensive trousers, Harry knew he was hard, he could feel it pressing, insistently, at his zipper, and now Tom could feel it as well. With his hand still around Harry’s throat and his teeth at the shell of his ear, Tom traced the heavy shape of it with his thumb. “Is this all for me?” he said, the words blurring with Harry’s skin.

“That depends, doesn’t it,” Harry said, hating how breathless he sounded, “can you handle it all?” it should have been defiant but it just sounded desperate, not that Harry could bring himself to care.

Tom just smiled. “Oh, I know I can,” he said, curling his hand to cup him through his trousers and squeeze him in time with his throat, “the question is, _can you?_ ”

Harry wanted to snap at him; to snap and bite and gnash because his heart was throbbing on his tongue and his muscles were stinging with the strain of keeping still and his teeth were aching from where he was grinding them together as he tried to round out the riffs and sparks of arousal that came with having a hot hand pressed against his dick and another clenching at his throat, drawing stars to the corners of his eyes. 

Tom let go.

And Harry gasped—the rush of oxygen hurting more than the deprivation of it—and he gulped, and he grabbed at the air with greedy lungs. His whole body sagging forward before Tom’s hands gently eased him back against his chest.

"What would you say...?" Tom said, his right-hand thumb stroking over the hollow of Harry’s throat, whilst his left teased between his legs, “...if I suggested we don’t go out tonight?”


End file.
